Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [227]
Enjolras, being a believer, disdained this sceptic, and being sober, scorned this drunkard. He granted him a little haughty pity. Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always rudely treated by Enjolras, harshly repelled, rejected, yet returning, he said of Enjolras: “What a fine statue!”
2
FUNERAL ORATION UPON BLONDEAU, BY BOSSUET
ON A CERTAIN AFTERNOON, which had, as we shall see, some coincidence with events before related, Laigle de Meaux was leaning lazily back against the doorway of the Café Musain. He had the appearance of a caryatid on vacation; he was supporting nothing but his reverie. He was looking at the Place Saint Michel. Leaning back is a way of lying down standing which is not disliked by dreamers. Laigle de Meaux was thinking, without melancholy, of a little mishap which had befallen him the day before at the law-school, and which modified his personal plans for the future—plans which were, moreover, rather indefinite.
Reverie does not hinder a carriage from going by, nor the dreamer from noticing the carriage. Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were wandering in a sort of general stroll, perceived, through all his somnambulism, a two-wheeled vehicle turning into the square, which was moving at a walk, as if undecided. What did this carriage want? why was it moving at a walk? Laigle looked at it. There was inside, beside the driver, a young man, and before the young man, a large carpet-bag. The bag exhibited to the passers-by this name, written in big black letters upon a card sewed to the cloth: MARIUS PONTMERCY.
This name changed Laigle’s attitude. He straightened up and addressed this apostrophe to the young man in the cabriolet:
“Monsieur Marius Pontmercy?”
The cabriolet, thus called upon, stopped.
The young man, who also seemed to be profoundly musing, raised his eyes.
“Well?” said he.
“You are Monsieur Marius Pontmercy?”
“Certainly.”
“I was looking for you,” said Laigle de Meaux.
“How is that?” inquired Marius; for he it was, in fact he had just left his grandfather‘s, and he had before him a face which he saw for the first time. “I do not know you.”
“Nor I either. I do not know you,” answered Laigle.
Marius thought he had met a buffoon, and that this was the beginning of a mystification in the middle of the street. He was not in a pleasant humour just at that moment. He knit his brows; Laigle de Meaux, imperturbable, continued:
“You were not at school yesterday”
“It is possible.”
“It is certain.”
“You are a student?” inquired Marius.
“Yes, Monsieur. Like you. The day before yesterday I happened to go into the school. You know, one sometimes has such notions. The professor was about to call the roll. You know that they are very ridiculous just at that time. If you miss the third call, they erase your name. Sixty francs gone.”
Marius began to listen. Laigle continued:
“It was Blondeau who was calling the roll. You know Blondeau; he has a very sharp and very malicious nose, and delights in smelling out the absent. He slily commenced with the letter P. I was not listening, not being concerned in that letter. The roll went on well, no erasure, the universe was present, Blondeau was sad. I said to myself, Blondeau, my love, you won’t do the slightest execution to-day Suddenly, Blondeau calls Marius Pontmercy; nobody answers. Blondeau, full of hope, repeats louder: Marius Pontmercy? And he seizes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels. I said to myself rapidly: Here is a brave fellow who is going to be erased. Attention. This is a real live fellow who is not punctual. He is not a good boy. He is not a book-worm, a student who studies, a white-billed pedant strong on science, letters, theology, and wisdom, one of those numskulls drawn out with four pins, a pin for each faculty. He is an honourable idler who loafs, who likes to rusticate, who